Character Building: A Metaphysical Perspective
Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Ali
Chairman MUSLIM institute
Human being is crown of all creations. Allah Almighty has blessed human being with a main role in His universe; the characteristics of all creations were merged in this being. Human is not only superior to all other creations physically but also intellectually and spiritually. These superiorities are not only in terms of Creator-creation relationship but also in regard to build society and dealing with other creations. All the Holy Prophets came to strengthen human being’s relation with Creator and thus building his character to form an ideal society. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) was crowned as exemplary to all humans and thus establishing his superiority over all beings. Human beings, having a main role in the universe, must think and analyse that what is our responsibility and in which path our success lies.
A human can only be considered complete if he is acquainted in all aspects of his dimensional entirety; there are three dimensions that constitute a human: physical body, intellect and soul. Though apparently the dimensions are of diverse nature, they are yet subject to an intricately beautiful connection, harmony and commonality among themselves.
A good example is of food; if considered under all three dimensions; the physical body’s food is the usual meals and drinks, the food of intellect is knowledge for which the human undertakes reading, research, analysis etc via various resources, channels and activities. Whereas the food for soul, as according to Hadhrat Sultan Bahoo RA, is the remembrance of Almighty Allah and the visualization of Ism-e-Allah Zaat i.e., personal name of Allah. In the Holy Quran, Allah Almighty mentioned “أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ” "Am I not your Lord?" and all the souls affirmed قَالُوا بَلَىٰ شَهِدْنَا “We bear witness”, at that moment in time the human existed in ‘spirit’ state and not in his physical state, that we see today. Therefore, it becomes clear that food for the soul is remembrance of Almighty Allah and the visualization of Ism-e-Allah Zaat.
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Thus, it is important for the human to make his physical dimension i.e his physical being as Aabid i.e., religious practitioner, his intellectual dimension as Aalim i.e., full of knowledge and his metaphysical being, the soul, as Aarif i.e., one who recognizes Creator. After comprehending and achieving all these three, a human can succeed in the completion of his humanity, and where a majority of such kind of enlightened humans would co-exist; a beautiful society would materialize.
Today we are not following Islam as a Deen i.e., as a complete code of life, and as a result human beings have become enemy of themselves which is leading to the destruction of humanity. Globally, humans are spending more than 1/50th of their total income on weapons and this all is resulting in the destruction of humanity.
For making an ideal society as per our religion, we must prepare ourselves for self-analysis. It is the need of time that we should start the edification from our homes, our streets, cities and within our community to bring ourselves to the level that Holy Quran has defined for our success. Our success lies in following the directions given by Holy Quran and Holy Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). In this way, even if one individual can edify himelf, under the domino effect, it would lead to peace and stability in the society.
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